Best College Basketball Teams (03/30/16)

Which college basketball team is the greatest to ever cut down the nets? As we head to Houston for the Final Four we rank every past National Champion to determine which team is the best ever.

To build our National Championship Power Rankings, we “played” every team against every other team, using strength of schedule adjusted statistics, 50,000 times each and ranked them by overall winning percentage of those games.

Let the countdown begin…

10. 1995-96 Kentucky Wildcats

If there is one thing this Kentucky team has in common with its Wildcat contemporaries is the amount of talent on one roster. Tony Delk, Antoine Walker, Walter McCarty, Derek Anderson, Ron Mercer and Nazr Mohammed were all first-round draft picks, plus four other players on this team made it to the NBA. “The Untouchables” went 34-2 in the regular season winning a then school record 27 straight and rolled through the tournament winning six matchups by an average of 21 points.

9. 1968-69 UCLA Bruins

This was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's (Lew Alcindor) last season in Westwood. He went out in style winning a third consecutive National Championship for the Bruins, the program's fifth in six years. UCLA lost one game all season, which ended a winning streak of 51 straight in Pauley Pavilion, 41 overall and 45 in conference play. Abdul-Jabbar was named the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player for a third year and was the first ever to earn the Naismith College Player of the Year award.

8. 1975-76 Indiana Hoosiers

The last team to complete a perfect season, Indiana went 32-0 before capping their magical run with a National Championship. The Hoosiers had three starters, Scott May, Kent Benson and Quinn Buckner, earn All-American honors with May being named NCAA Player of the Year.

7. 1972-73 UCLA Bruins

Another year, another title. The Bruins won their seventh straight National Championship in 1973 and set a record with 88 straight wins. John Wooden's team won all of its tournament games by double-digits. In the title game, Bill Walton went 21 of 22 from the floor for 44 points. This is often mentioned as the greatest college basketball performance of all-time. Walton was named National Player of the Year for a third time in his collegiate career.

6. 2011-12 Kentucky Wildcats

John Calipari can recruit and for the third consecutive year he had the nation's top class headlined by Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Marquis Teague and Kyle Wiltjer. The young Wildcats would win the NCAA Championship, Kentucky's eighth title and set a record (38) for most wins in a season. Davis won every award possible and then was taken with the first overall pick in the NBA Draft.

5. 1966-67 UCLA Bruins

This is the first of UCLA's unmatched seven straight NCAA Championships. The 1966 squad could have won the title as well but NCAA rules at the time prevented freshmen from playing, which kept Lew Alcindor, Kenny Heitz, Lynn Shackelford and Lucius Allen (the core of the 1967 title team) from playing. Alcindor dominated in his first varsity season averaging 29.0 points and 15.5 rebounds. The NCAA banned the dunk the next season because of Alcindor.

4. 1954-55 San Francisco Dons

The Dons started three African-American players, including future Hall of Fame players Bill Russell and K.C. Jones, which helped change the game. Russell's athletic style of play and defensive prowess helped San Francisco go 28-1. The Dons defeated LaSalle in the 1955 title game giving the school its first National Championship.

3. 1967-68 UCLA Bruins

The Bruins walked all over their opponents in the regular season going 29-1 and winning by an average of 26.2 points. The tournament was no different as UCLA bested all comers by an average of 21 points, including revenging their lone regular season loss to Houston. Lew Alcindor, the USBWA College Player of the Year, averaged 26.2 points and 16.5 rebounds that season. Alcindor was named to the all-tournament team as were Bruins teammates Lucius Allen, Lynn Shackelford and Mike Warren.

2. 1955-56 San Francisco Dons

This was the first team in college basketball history to finish an entire season undefeated. The Dons dominated with defense giving up just 52 points per game (tops in the nation). Bill Russell, who averaged 20 points and 21 rebounds in his senior season, and K.C. Jones helped lead San Francisco to their second straight championship and extend their winning streak to 55 games.

1. 1971-72 UCLA Bruins

The honor of the greatest team of all-time goes to the 1972 Bruins. This season was the beginning (in earnest) of UCLA's record 88 straight wins. The Walton Gang led the Bruins to an undefeated (30-0) regular season, winning on average by more than 30 points per game. UCLA was ranked No. 3 in the country in scoring (94.6 points) and No. 6 in defense (64.3). Bill Walton averaged 21.2 points and 15.5 rebounds per game. He was named Naismith College Player of the Year and fellow teammate Henry Bibby was a consensus First-Team All-American.

This team was so good that after a close national championship game against Florida State, Walton said, “We should have beat these guys with ease. I guess I should be happy that we won, but, in all honesty, I'm not."